Well I got to record my first drone track that will be part of a release, a buddy wanted a drone track for his solo project called wolfcrier, he came to me and my Peavey Henge. It was quite fun!!! And definitely not quiet.
Very inspirational thread, this one. I've been getting home after work and amp-trancing out since I read through this a month ago. I've had good experiences running my bass through an MS-2000 synth and switching between bass and keyboard stuff. The keyboard sounds really good dialed into weird subsonic helicopter noises. Wish I had some sort of input-selector box so that I could use both at the same time or switch between the two by foot.
Its cool to actually make drone after posting this thread however long ago i did. Your suggestions in both gear and examples have helped a lot. Hope it helped others.
Rev. DOOM, The Dude of DOOM, DOOMER, El DOOMerino, if you're not into the whole brevity thing...
Last night I went to an open jam and brought my Drone Commander. Another dude there brought a practice amp, a baby monitor as a mic, and a large hand drum. He was working with feedback from the mic/amp and using the drum as a resonator to manipulate the feedback.
Through the course of a jam, I started to increase the volume of my Drone Commander to a substantial level and eventually the drone started to effect the mic feedback. Now when the duder started moving the mic and drum around, the feedback was harmonically "in tune" with my setup but he could still move the drum amd mic around physically to get different pitches and shit.
We were staring at each other with our jaws all stupid and hanging from how awesome it was.
D.o.S. wrote:I'm fucking stupid and no one should operate under any other premise.
kbithecrowing wrote:Last night I went to an open jam and brought my Drone Commander. Another dude there brought a practice amp, a baby monitor as a mic, and a large hand drum. He was working with feedback from the mic/amp and using the drum as a resonator to manipulate the feedback.
Through the course of a jam, I started to increase the volume of my Drone Commander to a substantial level and eventually the drone started to effect the mic feedback. Now when the duder started moving the mic and drum around, the feedback was harmonically "in tune" with my setup but he could still move the drum amd mic around physically to get different pitches and shit.
We were staring at each other with our jaws all stupid and hanging from how awesome it was.
The drum idea is so rad.
Unrelated, I'm about to start working on my bass vi/drone project now that my V4 is out of the shop, and I'm curious as to how you guys record. Do you do your drones all improv? Or do you set out a really bare structure for chords/melodies and go from there? I have songs written out currently that use droning in parts, but for longer interludes and such I can't decide whether I should just drone and keep what I like, or go into it with a specific idea of what I'm doing.
In my experience, both are equally valid, but it really depends on what you're trying to do.
So, for example, one of the things that I very much enjoy doing is resampling bits of drones that I've already recorded: that's fairly often an improv-based activity, but that's not something that translates to live guitar work very easily. For electric stringed instrument stuff, I find that going into it with the ide of what I'm doing, and then taking everything down to the core note/interval/resonant frequency in the practice space/basement/whatever is the best way for me.
Okay, that's kind of what I was thinking. Currently the more structured stuff is done with a microbrute/volca keys and volca beats/sr-16 providing most of the drone while the bass vi parts are more melodic and chord based, but for the rest I'm just trying to think of a way to keep it pretty spontaneous while still being able to recreate it live and play a more structured set. I'll add that I'm also very very new to synths and playing solo music.
So, a perfect example of this sort of scenario in this sort of minimalist style (although it's not Dr0)))ne music in the loud amps sense, it's similar territory to Earth's latest stuff) is Duane Pitre's Feel Free. It's ostensibly a piece of music. This is part of what it sounds like on CD. Like, you can go to the record store, buy the album, and it sounds like this: [soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/duanepitre/feel-free-cd-lp-album-preview[/soundcloud]
But if he wants to play it live, with an ensemble, it sounds like this: [soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/duanepitre/feel-free-live-at-cafe-oto-excerpt[/soundcloud]
Or if he wants to do a sound installation type gig, it sounds like this [soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/duanepitre/feel-free-live-brussels[/soundcloud]
So. Three versions of one piece of music, even though it's nominally improvised -- the CD is a computer program, the second version is a Sextet, and the last version is sampled. This isn't any different from what jazz musicians or jam band people do, really, Hell, even the 'covers only' bar band you have to suffer through when you go out to drink with your less-discriminating friends do it, to some degree. The spontaneity comes from knowing/figuring out all the disparate elements of what you want your piece to say and where you want it to go, then manipulating those elements to suit your taste to what's happening while you're performing it. Say there's a shithead who won't stop texting, ok maybe you're introducing the abrasive elements earlier: maybe everyone's paying attention, so the abrasive bit never comes up at all, etc.
^I like yer perspective. I'm at least 90% improvised when I drone. Any pre planning is mostly in set up or maybe discussing key signature when playing with someone else.
D.o.S. wrote:What were you using for amplification? Provided PA?
Yeah, provided PA.
In the future I'd love to get my own stereo rig going, weather it be a PA or two bass rigs for left and right, but it seems so daunting in terms of sheer amount of things to have. And I like stereo too much to just go out of one stack.
D.o.S. wrote:I'm fucking stupid and no one should operate under any other premise.
